Alone
by remuslupin31060
Summary: WARNING: DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILERS! This is a story I wrote a while ago about George right after the Battle of Hogwarts. Other warnings: Talk of family loss, etc.
1. Chapter 1

George Weasley had never thought it would end this way. After all those good time he had shared with his brother. After Hogwarts, after the joke shop, after all those fun summers testing products for the shop they would one day own. There would be no more. He would never again be able to share another memory with Fred.

George had known there was always the possibility of them being separated by the Battle of Hogwarts. He had known that he, himself, might die, or that they both would end up being killed in the battle. But sitting with his family, next to Fred, mourning his death, made George realize that he had never thought that he would survive, and Fred wouldn't.

Fred had not only been his twin brother, but his best friend. They had done everything together. Sitting there, looking at Fred, George wondered if he would ever return to the joke shop. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes had been managed by both of them. He couldn't imagine managing it alone. Besides, every day he went in there, it would remind him of Fred. It was already painful enough just to think about him.

George could hear his family talking quietly, but he did not hear a word of what they said. All he heard were voices, but he couldn't seem to put the words together. He wouldn't have been able to hear them if he had tried; his heart was beating so loudly it sounded like drums in his head.

Maybe this was all a dream Maybe he had fallen unconscious in battle, and was dreaming that Fred was dead. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his left arm. Looking down, he realized that he had been gripping his arm so hard with his right hand that his nails had dug into his skin, and he was bleeding. Well, that answers that, he thought.

It wasn't a dream. Tears rolled silently down his cheeks, obscuring his vision and making it appear, for a fraction of a second, as if Fred were alive again. He brushed them away, angry. It was like his tears were taunting him.

"George. George!" The sound of someone calling his name snapped him out of his trance. He looked up and saw his father looking at him, concern in his eyes. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.

George nodded and followed his father to an empty corner of the Great Hall.

"George, I cannot even begin to understand what you must be feeling. I know he was everything to you."

He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again. He was finding it very difficult to talk. His throat burned, and he was trembling so much that he was sure his words would be slurred beyond comprehension anyway.

It took a few moments, but George finally regained his ability to speak. "It isn't that he _was_ my best friend. Fred _is_ my best friend." George looked around him. He was conscious, for the first time since he had been mourning for Fred in the Great Hall, of his surroundings. There were people crying and mourning the dead, there were people hugging friends and family they thought they had lost, and there was quiet talk about what to do next. "Dad, I've decided not to continue with the joke shop."

"That's too bad," his father said. He went on, hesitant. "George, sometimes you have to move on in life. I may be hard, but we just have to let go."

"Maybe, but not yet," he said, walking back over to the rest of his family.


	2. Chapter 2

The next two days went by in a blur. The only things he really remembered were Harry defeating Voldemort and everyone sitting in the Great Hall the day after. He hadn't slept well. He was happy Voldemort was gone, but he just wanted his brother back more than anything in the world.

George was walking down Diagon Ally. There was almost no one there. He went straight to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Grabbing a cardboard box, he started taking things off the shelf. He would have to pack up sometime, and this gave his something to do.

He was surprised when the bell over the door jingled and his mother walked into the shop. "I'm sorry, we're closed," he said, remembering the first time the bell over the door had ever jingled, signaling the start of the business.

"I was afraid of that," the woman said. "Dennis, go look around for a while."

As the young boy walked off, George recognized him as Dennis Creevey, Collin Creevey's younger brother. His mother, a muggle, walked over to George, sorrow and pain in her eyes. Collin had died, like Fred, in the battle.

"I brought him here to take his mind off his brother," Mrs. Creevey said. "He's always loved your shop, Mr. Weasley. I thought bringing him here might help him move on."

"I was planning on closing the shop for good. I can't be here without my brother."

"Think of all of the people you could help! Just look at Dennis," she said, pointing to where the adolescent boy stood smiling at a Pygmy Puff, oblivious of the conversation between the two adults. "I haven't seen him smile since before Collin… left."

George felt good for the first time since the battle. As he stood there watching Dennis laugh again, happiness flooded him. He realized that he really could help people who lost someone in the battle. Besides, Fred would never want him to stop doing something he loves. He'll run the shop for the both of them.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm very proud of you, George," Mr. Weasley said, looking around the joke shop at the crowds of people talking and looking at merchandise.

George smiled at his father. "I just hope Fred is, too. Oh, you can hang it right there in the center," he said to his assistant, who was hanging up a painting. The moving portrait looked almost exactly like George, except for some very minor differences. Above the painting was a plaque that read "Fred Weasley 1978-1998".

"How do you like it, Fred?" he asked. "Our grand reopening.


End file.
